Stepping inside the Vietnam bomb shelter where Joan Baez sang

Staff at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, Vietnam explore the underground bunker which was discovered beneath the bar in the hotel's garden on Sept. 27.

AP, file

In this July 1972 file photo, Jane Fonda is surrounded by soldiers and reporters as she sings an anti-war song near Hanoi during the Vietnam War.

"If these walls could talk, they would tell a lot of stories," Kai Speth, general manager of the historic Metropole Hotel in Hanoi, told the AP's Mike Ives as they toured the hotel's recently uncovered bomb shelter.

Joan Baez and Jane Fonda, amongst others, are said to have sheltered in the dingy underground bunker during the so-called Christmas Bombings that rocked parts of Vietnam's capital in December 1972.

The North Vietnamese government used the French colonial-era hotel, a stately four-story building in the shadow of Hanoi's Opera House, to house foreign guests during the war.

Fonda's visit to enemy territory ignited fury at home. She criticized U.S. policy on North Vietnamese radio and earned the nickname "Hanoi Jane" after posing for a photo atop an anti-aircraft gun — an incident that Fonda later said she regretted.

As American B-52 bombers roared overhead Baez gave an impromptu singing performance in the bunker, according to a contemporary witness. Read the full story.

Na Son Nguyen / AP

A staff member at the Metropole Hotel climbs from a Vietnam war underground bunker which was discovered beneath a bar in the hotel's garden on Sept. 27.